The act­ing head of the Africa Ex­port-Im­port Bank (Afrex­im­bank) in the Caribbean, Okechuk­wu Ihe­jiri­ka, says he re­mains con­fi­dent that sched­uled flights be­tween Africa and the Caribbean re­gion could soon be­come a re­al­i­ty.

Afrex­im­bank is en­cour­ag­ing Caribbean busi­ness­es to show­case their goods and ser­vices at the 4th In­tra-African Trade Fair (IATF2025) in Al­giers in Sep­tem­ber and Ihe­jiri­ka, who is head of Afrex­im­bank’s Bar­ba­dos-based Caribbean of­fice, said that the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion is ex­plor­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a di­rect flight be­tween the Caribbean and Al­giers for IATF2025.

He, how­ev­er, said that many Africans re­quire a visa to trav­el through the Unit­ed States or the Unit­ed King­dom, adding that it is eas­i­er for a Caribbean na­tion­al to ac­cess such a visa.

“So that means it’s easy for them ac­tu­al­ly to come,” Ihe­jiri­ka told jour­nal­ists dur­ing Afrex­im­bank’s 32nd an­nu­al meet­ings (AAM2025) tak­ing place here through Sat­ur­day.

IATF2025 is pitched as a unique and valu­able plat­form for busi­ness­es to ac­cess an in­te­grat­ed African mar­ket of over 1.4 bil­lion peo­ple with a gross do­mes­tic prod­uct (GD) of over US$3.5 tril­lion cre­at­ed un­der the African Con­ti­nen­tal Free Trade Area.

Ihe­jiri­ka said that Afre­im­bank would or­gan­ise a di­rect flight be­tween the Caribbean and Al­giers once there is de­mand, not­ing al­so that a con­ver­sa­tion about trade is al­so about goods and the move­ment of peo­ple, which in­cludes flights.

“It’s a very in­ter­est­ing top­ic. And what we see of late is more air­lines now try­ing to talk about that pos­si­bil­i­ty and com­ing to us as well to tell us they are in­ter­est­ed,” Ihe­jiri­ka told re­porters, adding that such con­ver­sa­tions were not tak­ing place four or five years ago.

“So, those con­ver­sa­tions are on the ta­ble, and usu­al­ly when prob­lems are dis­cussed on the ta­ble, the next thing that fol­lows is the so­lu­tion,” Ihe­jiri­ka said.

“So, I’m very op­ti­mistic that one of them, in no dis­tant time, should have a sched­uled, reg­u­lar flight be­tween Africa and the Caribbean as a first step. Be­cause with the move­ment of peo­ple via that flight will al­so come move­ment of goods.”

He was con­fi­dent that when this is proven as a vi­able con­cept, peo­ple would ap­proach Afrex­im­bank for fi­nanc­ing.

“… then we al­so see peo­ple who will come to us as well with in­ter­est on the mar­itime side, which, of course, we’d hap­py to sup­port to see goods move freely, di­rect­ly, through that short hub across the At­lantic to get goods across the Caribbean with­out hav­ing to tran­sit any­where else,” Ihe­jiri­ka said.

Speak­ing on the open­ing day of AAM2025 on Wednes­day, St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Dr. Ter­rance Drew not­ed that one of the largest air­craft to land in his twin is­land Fed­er­a­tion was the Air Peace di­rect flight from Ghana to Bas­seterre on June 12.

Air Peace, West and Cen­tral Africa’s largest air­line, made a his­toric non-stop 10-hour flight from Nige­ria to St. Kitts and Nevis.

The Boe­ing 777 air­craft brought del­e­gates for the five-day Afri-Caribbean Busi­ness Ex­po (ACBE) in Bas­seterre and was the first time a Niger­ian car­ri­er has land­ed in St. Kitts and Nevis.

The con­fer­ence was cu­rat­ed by Aquar­i­an Con­sult, a man­age­ment-con­sult­ing and hu­man-cap­i­tal-de­vel­op­ment firm based here.

Drew not­ed that while the flight was a char­ter, Afrex­im­bank was the cat­a­lyst, adding that the flight demon­strat­ed “how we can im­prove trade be­tween the Caribbean and Africa.

“So even though it was catal­ysed and start­ed by the Afrex­im­bank, you can see it’s al­ready ex­tend­ed be­yond their Afrex­im­bank. For this was an ini­tia­tive be­tween (Aquar­i­an Con­sult]) of course, the Min­is­ter of Cul­ture and small busi­ness in St. Kitts and Nevis,” Drew said.

For IATF2025, AFrex­im­bank has set aside a day for CARI­COM, dubbed the di­as­po­ra day, “where we have all the di­as­po­ras com­ing to show­case what they have.

“And I think that’s the whole essence of that con­ver­sa­tion,” he said, ac­knowl­edg­ing that pre­vi­ous edi­tions of the fair fo­cused on Africa on­ly.

“… but what we are now try­ing to do is to cre­ate a big­ger Africa-Caribbean mar­ket, where it’s no longer Africa show­cas­ing, but it’s al­so Caribbean com­ing in to say, ‘This is who we are. This is what we have to of­fer to the ta­ble.’”

He said that to­geth­er, Africa and the Caribbean con­sti­tute an even big­ger mar­ket.

“And the good thing is that once Africa is in the (room) and Caribbean comes in, it’s a case of de­mand meet sup­ply, and every­body we have that vi­sion to cre­ate a big­ger mar­ket, which is some­thing that we’ve all dreamed about,” Ihe­jiri­ka said.

“So sig­nif­i­cant­ly, the AITF is play­ing that role, and we hope to see a lot more Caribbean par­tic­i­pa­tion from the last edi­tion, when we had that in Egypt, you know, be­cause I see a lot of pos­i­tive in­ter­est, I will say, in that area, and I hope that res­onates a lot more.”

Afrex­im­bank is al­so prepar­ing to host the Fourth An­nu­al AfriCaribbean Trade and In­vest­ment Fo­rum (AC­T­IF2025), from Ju­ly 28 – 29 in St. George’s, Grena­da.

“AC­T­IF for us is our con­ven­ing. Is a place where we lever­age on our con­ven­ing pow­er to bring in the who is who in busi­ness in Africa and the Caribbean, and it’s as sim­ple as that,” Ihe­jiri­ka said.

“… what we re­alised is that we are try­ing to ad­dress one dif­fi­cult prob­lem, which is the prob­lem of trade, boost­ing in­ter­na­tion­al trade be­tween Africa and the Caribbean,” Ihe­jiri­ka said, adding that be­fore AC­T­IF, there was no sin­gle place where busi­ness­es, pol­i­cy mak­ers and oth­er de­ci­sion mak­ers would sit in the same place to dis­cuss the is­sue.

“So AC­T­IF has pro­vid­ed that plat­form and is work­ing rapid­ly,” he said, adding that the pre­vi­ous edi­tions in Bar­ba­dos, Guyana and The Ba­hamas were “huge suc­cess­es” with a col­lec­tive at­ten­dance of over 6,000 peo­ple in at­ten­dance, and deals worth over US$202 bil­lion signed.

“That’s a bold state­ment. So what we are now do­ing is to lever­age on that suc­cess for the next edi­tion,” he added.

ABU­JA, Nige­ria, Jun 26, CMC